Divorce

What is some major effect of divorce among children (ages 1-12) in families' First of all I will begin talking about divorce. From the past to present, people all over the world have decided to live together, which is called “getting marriaged” in another word, so that they depend on each other romantically and financially. Nevertheless, some couples are unable to maintain their relationship; therefore they choose divorce, which is one of the solutions to cope with problems between husband and wife. Furthermore, most people think carefully before they get marriaged. However, the divorce rates trend to continually increase nowadays, thus it might be argued that divorces can be taken place easier than in the past. There are three main causes of divorce: changing woman’s roles, stress in modern living, lack of communication, and financial issues. The first significant cause of recent rise in the rates of divorce is that women completely change in roles. In the past, men have to earn money to afford the expenses of family, whereas woman only do housework, hence women have no money leading decisions and all decision are made by the husbands’ money. Because of these situations, it is too difficult for most women to separate from their husbands. Nonetheless, these situations entirely change nowadays. The equality between men and women in roles are very clear at the moment, thus women can work outside to earn money, while men share the household tasks such as cooking, cleaning, washing as well as caring for children. Many men cannot deal with the point that their wives make more money than they do. This can also cause problems and stress for a man when it comes to jobs and money problems. It can be clearly seen that women are independent from money as they can earn money by themselves to support their living cost. Accordingly, the divorce rates recently rise. Another cause to confirm the recent increase in divorce rates is stress in modern living. Many people, who live in globalization, have considerable pressures to earn money. It can be obviously seen that the stress has occurred since they are children. For instance, in Thailand, students generally want to go to famous school so that they take advantage to go to well-known universities. Studying in celebrated universities mostly causes having a good opportunity to find a job or earn a lot of money. This circumstance not only happens in Thailand, but also occurs in many countries. Some people are laid off from their companies; consequently the stress occurs in their family, which leads to divorce. Some families can earn money, but inadequate for covering their expenses, therefore it is easy to think about divorce. Nevertheless, the rates of unemployment trend to continually increase as a result the divorce rates can also rise. It is no doubt that the stress in modern living may lead to recently increasing divorce rates. The final cause of recently increasing divorce is lack of communication. Owing to financial status in each family, many people are fairly busy. For this reason, they have inadequate time to talk to the problems with their partners, which produces the likelihood of divorce. Some couples are often quiet when they have problems each other, as a consequence little problems can be expanded to probably become huge problems, resulting in divorce. It is quite clear that the more communications are used, the more divorce rates are reduced. Although, these three causes of the recent rise in divorce rates are expressed above, there are also two effects of the recent increase of divorce rates: negative effects and positive effects .Firstly, the effects of recent enlargement in divorce rates are negative effects. Most couples normally have children when they get marriage. Accordingly, divorces can directly effect on children. Children living in single parent families are more probably to get pregnant as teenagers, drop out of high school, abuse drugs and have aggressively emotional and behavioral problems, which lead to social problems. Some children decide to go out of their home when their parents separate each other, and subsequently they become homeless children. They do not have good opportunities to find a job due to shortage of education. Consequently, crime may likely be the end result. These are significantly negative effects of recent expansion in divorce rates. Secondly, on the other hand, other effects of rise in divorce rates are positive effects. People, who divorce by consent from their partners, want to have better quality of life, since they are unhappy with their spouses. Accordingly, they can work efficiently, which results from fine mental condition. They not only have more free time to do many things, but also free from their spouses’ murmurs. In addition, divorces also get rid of the violence of quarrel between husband and wife, hence everybody in family get better in physical and mental health, particularly for children. These are the advantageous effects of increasing divorce rates. Divorce involves the recognition that a marriage has hopelessly failed and that at least one of the partners has no desire to continue the marital relationship. Divorce legally dissolves a marriage, and permits the partners to remarry if they choose. Divorce differs from an annulment, which declares a marriage invalid because of some flaw in the contract. The Constitution of the United States did nothing to limit the rights of the states to enact their own laws governing marriage and divorce. Despite several efforts to amend the Constitution, to allow Congress to pass federal legislation on divorce, to this day the states retain separate laws. Because divorce laws vary from state to state, the "migratory divorce" developed: couples would move temporarily to a state where divorce was easier to obtain than at home. For example, a couple living in New York State, where until 1967 the only grounds for divorce was adultery, would establish residence in Nevada - - a procedure that took only 6 weeks -- and file for divorce on grounds of mental cruelty. Most people, when thinking about divorce, worry about the impact that it has on the children that are involved. Even though children are most likely better off if totally incompatible parents separate instead of staying together, divorce is about loss and change, and it is still hard for children. Everyone knows that divorce has its effects on children. There are different sources that try to explain these effects. Graham Blaine Jr. states that divorce is a threat to all children, whereas Rhone Mahoney states divorce is not always the cause of behavioral or academic problems in children coming from divorced families. Yvette Walczak and Shelia Burns state that the extent of damage can be determined by parents and their methods parents and their methods of explanation to the children. Many children may endure mixed emotions while going through such a confusing stage of their early lives. Many children will need to gain counseling which will help them to cope with the bad situation of split parents, Blaine uses five specific guidelines for parents to follow in order to try and lessen the effect of divorce upon the child. These are: 1) Place children with whichever parent remarries unless there is a marked incompatibility between that parent and the child. 2) Children under twelve should not be sent to boarding school. 3) If children must be shuffled between two families, then one household should be established as home and the other as a place to visit. 4) Do not give children under twelve a choice regarding the parent with whom they are to live, and do not tell children about an impending divorce until definite plans for the future had been agreed upon. 5) Children should not be placed in a position where they serve as confidants or spies for one parent against the other. Every effort should be made to help them retain whatever feelings of love or respect they may have for each parent (Grollman, 84). He admits that these guidelines cannot eliminate all of the damages that are a result of the divorce. He gives many real-life examples of children of divorced families that are emotionally scarred and unable to have normal relationships once they reach adulthood. He targets the actual divorce as the cause of these problems. In Mahoney’s article she argues that “ there could be several reasons [that] … children of divorced parents have more emotional and behavioral problems, and also do less well in school than children who live with both of their biological parents”(Mahony, 2). By using strategies such as research and stating logical facts, Mahony gives the viewer a better understanding of the psychological issues children encounter with divorced parents. According to the study which she writes about, parents with psychological problems are more likely to get divorced and children of parents with these problems are more likely themselves to have a rough time. Another reason is some parents who wind up divorcing have a long period of unpleasant conflict before they separate. This conflict causes children to act up and do less well in school. The last reason that Mahony brings up is that the divorce itself may cause kids to have problems. Factors such as income and the decrease in time that they are able to spend with their parents cause them to see more conflict and the separation may scare or anger them. (Maloney, 2) Yvette Walczak currently practices as a Family Therapist and works as a volunteer in a day center for the mentally ill. Sheila Burns is a senior lecturer in social work at the Polytechnic of North London. Their book Divorce: The Child’s Point of View is written for parents to understand what their children are going through during and after a divorce. They use their own daily experience as resource as well as statistics. These two women have the opportunity to work hands-on with families dealing with many problems and would appeal to a younger audience that has already been a product of divorced parents. These authors have found four basic profiles that describe various effects of divorce on young children. These are: Negative profile, positive profile, mixed profile, and the no effect profile (Walczak and Burns, 107). A viewer with divorced parents would unquestionably take interest in these profiles due to the fact that any child that is a product of divorced parents would fall into one of these four categories. The titles are pretty much self-explanatory, children that fit the negative profile tend to do poorly in school and have behavioral problem (108). The positive effect children are better adapted and able to understand far more than most people their age (112). The mixed profile children dealt with some gains and losses but overall had no major problem (114). Finally the no effect profile says that life went on the same, as before, the children were satisfied with whatever had been told to them (115). In their studies, the authors have found that divorce does not always have to have a negative effect upon the children involved. In the cases with the positive, mixed, and no effect profiles, the parents had some responsibility for the positive outcome. All of these sources were successful in presenting different aspects of the effects of divorce on children. They brought up valid points that the general public is not usually aware of. All of these articles were effective in their approaches to the topic of divorce and its effects on children. Rhona Mahony is a visiting scholar from Stanford Law School. She is writing this article as a rebuttal to the general perception that divorce is the cause of most behavioral and emotional problems in today’s youth. As an example of higher learning and a known savant, she uses logos to back up her theory, and uses a study of children from divorced families. In Mahony’s article she argues that “ there could be several reasons [that] … children of divorced parents have more emotional and behavioral problems, and also do less well in school than children who live with both of their biological parents”(Mahony, 2). By using strategies such as research and stating logical facts, Mahony gives the viewer a better understanding of the psychological issues children encounter with divorced parents. According to the study which she writes about, parents with psychological problems are more likely to get divorced and children of parents with these problems are more likely themselves to have a rough time. Another reason is some parents who wind up divorcing have a long period of unpleasant conflict before they separate. This conflict causes children to act up and do less well in school. The last reason that Mahony brings up is that the divorce itself may cause kids to have problems. Factors such as income and the decrease in time that they are able to spend with their parents cause them to see more conflict and the separation may scare or anger them. (Maloney, 2). Yvette Walczak currently practices as a Family Therapist and works as a volunteer in a day center for the mentally ill. Sheila Burns is a senior lecturer in social work at the Polytechnic of North London. Their book Divorce: The Child’s Point of View is written for parents to understand what their children are going through during and after a divorce. They use their own daily experience as resource as well as statistics. These two women have the opportunity to work hands-on with families dealing with many problems and would appeal to a younger audience that has already been a product of divorced parents. These authors have found four basic profiles that describe various effects of divorce on young children. These are: Negative profile, positive profile, mixed profile, and the no effect profile (Walczak and Burns, 107). A viewer with divorced parents would unquestionably take interest in these profiles due to the fact that any child that is a product of divorced parents would fall into one of these four categories. The titles are pretty much self-explanatory, children that fit the negative profile tend to do poorly in school and have behavioral problem (108). The positive effect children are better adapted and able to understand far more than most people their age (112). The mixed profile children dealt with some gains and losses but overall had no major problem (114). Finally the no effect profile says that life went on the same, as before, the children were satisfied with whatever had been told to them (115). In their studies, the authors have found that divorce does not always have to have a negative effect upon the children involved. In the cases with the positive, mixed, and no effect profiles, the parents had some responsibility for the positive outcome. All of these sources were successful in presenting different aspects of the effects of divorce on children. They brought up valid points that the general public is not usually aware of. All of these articles were effective in their approaches to the topic of divorce and its effects on children. In conclusion, a family is one of the important parts of society, thus many people had better aware of the significance of relationship in family. At the moment, divorce has become the substantial problem because of changing women’s roles, stress in modern living and lack of communication. Nevertheless, there are also the two different ways in effects, which are negative and positive effects. Some couples, which have no children, divorce by consent, therefore divorce should be good solution for couples to deal with this problem. On the other hand, some couples having children in their family should think deliberatively before they end their marriage in divorce; otherwise innocent children probably become victims for this situation. Although people tend to think carefully before they get marriage, the rates of divorce continuously rise nowadays. For a child, it is very hard losing a parent. The child's life becomes more stressful because of economic loss and the loss of a supportive parent. Since many children do not adjust well, their behavior is affected. The change is devastating for many children and affects the rest of their life. Divorce of parents causes many problems and affects children negatively. The loss of a parent can cause loss in knowledge, skills, and resources from the parents. They lose such things as support from the parent in finances, emotions, and care. Children tend to have a harder time dealing with a divorce the more divorces their parents go through. The better the parents adjust to these losses, the better the children will adjust, and the fewer problems that will come about. When the child is in a single parent’s home, there is usually a loss of money and therefore, resources. This can lead to the child being jealous of other children and having lower self-esteem. Works Cited Grollman, Earl A. Explaining Divorce to Children. Beacon Press: Boston, 1972. Mahony, Rhona. Kidding Ourselves: Breadwinning Babies, and Bargaining Power. Basic Books: New York, NY, c1995. Walczac, Yvette. Divorce: The Child’s Point of View. Harper & Row: London, San Francisco, 1984.